


For I Will Fly to Thee

by sleepdrunk



Category: Good Omens (TV), Good Omens - Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett
Genre: Blanket Permission, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-18
Updated: 2019-08-18
Packaged: 2020-09-06 13:34:31
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,180
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20292292
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sleepdrunk/pseuds/sleepdrunk
Summary: This is the place where my soul left my body.The sun rises, and I am swept away like stardust.





	For I Will Fly to Thee

**Author's Note:**

> Please heed the tags. The MCD is real. 
> 
> The premise to this story is that the two have become disconnected from their otherworldly powers, that originally stemmed from a now largely disbanded heaven and hell, and are now effectively mortal.

“Hullo, Aziraphale.”

“Crowley, don’t-- Crowley, listen to me._ Please._ Focus on my voice.”

That’s strange, I think. Sometimes, English doesn’t sound like English-- but man, does Aziraphale always sound like Aziraphale.

He sounds worried though.

“Shh-- Crowley, please. Please, help is on the way.” I hear sirens. They wind down as the vehicle approaches, and there’s a general cacophony of people shouting. Boots running through leaves. “We’re over here!” Aziraphale screams.

His voice is hoarse, desperate like I’ve never heard it.

Aziraphale. Oh, Aziraphale. Don’t you know-- it’s too late. I can’t bear it.

Turns out, once you’re kicked out of hell, that’s it. The immortal bit? _Poof. _

Oh, that’s nice. His warm hands on mine. I breathe in, imagining a goofy smile on my face as I close my eyes and hold his hand, but then the pain hits and I sputter and cough. I realise that I cannot see him--

Tight skin. Hot, wretched sick; the taste of blood on my tongue. 

I scream. 

Everything is burning. My vision clears a bit, but it’s that swimming blackness peppered with coloured stars-- but there is his face. His face, _his face_\-- more like melting, swirling; his brown eyes two points of reality that remain above me.

Oh, I’m so sorry. 

_Aziraphale. Aziraphale, Aziraphale, Aziraphale._

I want to touch him but nothing_ works_; I can’t even summon the electrical impulse in my brain to make my arm move, let alone follow through with the motion.

Ah, well. Such is life.

This awareness settles in with my last few breaths. I feel the coolness of fallen leaves stuck to the back of my neck; blood is matted in my hair and sticking my eyelids shut, but I focus on his hand in mine.

I am dying.

I smile at him. Squeeze his hand. This could have gone worse.

Well, it really could have gone better.

I have failed, and must now take my leave.

I will, at least, leave Aziraphale here; whole and safe. I hope I can transmit the depth of my feeling through our touch.

He knows the instant that I slip away.

•••

Never had I thought of my body like an engine. It makes sense, though; like when the electricity goes out during a storm. There’s all that ambient noise that’s there and you don’t notice it until it whirrs to a halt and everything inside is silent.

That is what it feels like, I think as I press a ghostly finger to my carotid artery, and I feel nothing.

Oh, but it’s stiff, and waxy there-- and a little rough. Stitches, I guess. Prettily made enough, presumably for a viewing? Or was that-- did they still think they could resuscitate? I’m not sure yet. It feels unnatural at any rate-- eerily cold, no body heat.

I think _wiggle nose_ and _inhale_ and nothing happens. The automatic parts of my consciousness go, _‘fuck, let’s panic! let’s hyperventilate!’_

Yet that doesn’t quite happen either. No skin to prickle; to make gooseflesh, to go numb in weird places.

No heart to race.

“No. Oh, Crowley. No--” Aziraphale’s throat squeezes against the words. “I told you--”

A hand on my neck, remarkably gentle. His sharp intake of air lets me know that the feeling of dead tissue disturbs him deeply. There’s a _snap_ in the air. A look of concerted effort on his face. He is trying to channel the energies of Heaven, I know-- but whether or not he can still rally this power, I am too far gone. 

I know he is warm. His skin must be alive and tingling. It’s a crime that I cannot feel it.

Above me, he is shaking and it might as well be the whole universe; my whole world, cracking along with his voice.

“Not yet.”

•••

I wake at nightfall.

It is some time before I can gather the energy to sit upright.

In the moonlight, I look at the backs of my hands. They are pale, bloodless; except for the knuckles which are decorated with deep purple bruises. I extend the my fingers and inspect the nails. There is black dirt under them and blood at the cuticles. One, the middle finger on my right hand, is cracked clean in half and clinging still to the skin. I dislike the sight at once; there is always a moment of shock that comes with seeing injured flesh, but it passes. I then feel a strong desire to shower and groom myself heavily; I must be revolting by this point.

My eyes work, I realize.

I am in the woods again. I look up at the sky and see a ring of spruce crowns, reaching high into the autumn sky. The sky is black except for sparkling celestial bodies; I am far from the bright city lights.

There is a hint of smoke coming from a building some ways away to the north-- a wood-burning fireplace. The forest is silent.

I fold my long limbs underneath me and stand. There is no pain in the movement-- not in my brutalized hands, not my bloodied and battered face.

Flashes of a fight I could never win swim in my head, but they’re gone before I can catch hold of them.

This is the place where my soul left my body.

The sun rises, and I am swept away like stardust.

•••

The next night is the same.

I rise from the place where I died.

There is not a soul around to disturb me; no sound, save for the soft footsteps of a grazing doe. I think she sees me, staring wide-eyed into the small clearing where I sit, a mouthful of clover stilled in her mouth for a moment-- and then she is gone.

I stand and walk through the trees, their rough bark glittering in places from an early frost. I move silently, my preternatural form disturbing nothing. In thirty yards, I reach a gravel service road, bracketed on both sides by the black shapes of spruce that hold the mist. I am in a valley, I know, but I do not recognize the area. Hills rise in increments on all sides, obscuring light from the town and the last of the daylight.

I begin to walk. It takes me all night, but I reach the highway.

At dawn, I put one triumphant boot on the surface of the highway.

I scare the shit out of a truck driver-- I didn’t see him coming, but, as I am reclaimed into oblivion for another day, I see the whites of his eyes and his mouth agape and hear the squeal of air-brakes as he tries to avoid hitting me.

Oops.

•••

Time passes. I do not know what the day is, or even the year.

I find with practice that I can, with a great deal of energy, summon the strength to either apparate into a car, or sometimes; flag one down.

A laugh erupts from me and I surprise myself.

Well. Not more than I startle the driver of the small silver sedan, who was not aware of my presence-- until just now.

This is some kind of sick situational irony-- I can almost feel Aziraphale backhanding my bicep.

•••

By some stroke of luck, the person driving this particular vehicle is none other than Anathema Device.

“Oh, _hostia puta!_ How the _fuck_\--”

She turns out to be an impeccable driver.

“Oh dear. Please don’t swerve-- I--”

“Fucking _Crowley_?”

“Oh! Our bicycling friend. The witch! Hullo!”

Not everyone can see me when I do this. Sometimes I just sit there, in their back seats, and I flicker in and out, watching their tired eyes scan the roadway; cast a glance in the rearview mirror-- but there’s no recognition there. Sometimes they see me and they freeze but for whatever reason, I don’t stick, and I find myself back in the clearing.

“No, motherfucker, you are dead-- you do not get to just say ‘hey’ to me, asshole.”

We speed down the highway, and to Anathema’s credit, she doesn’t so much as wiggle the steering wheel, though he does white-knuckle it for a while.

She catches her breath, puffing her cheeks out. She looks back at me using the rear-view mirror every few seconds, eyes wide behind her round glasses.

“Sorry,” I say. I really am. I catch my own reflection in the windows and realize that I must not be a welcome apparition-- expected or not. My eyes are sunken and my skin is sallow; bruises grace my cheeks and wrap around my neck in the shape of another’s hands. 

I sigh, and something in Anathema’s eyes softens.

“Uhhhh, okay. Assuming I am not going completely insane right now, I’m like, just gonna roll with this?” Anathema looks at me again and unconsciously wiggles her nose. “It’s okay. Crowley, we really miss you, honey.”

“Oh.” This fact surprises me. A wave of heavy emotion crashes into me and I find it hard to speak again.

“We do, baby.”

Anathema’s voice is choked in a way I have never heard it before. I think that I hate grief; how it weighs people down like anchors, flukes digging into the sea-bed and catching on every stray remnant of the dead. “Especially Aziraphale.”

All I can do is stare at her reflection.

“How is he?” I ask, but it’s not much more than a whisper.

“Oh, Crowley.” A deep breath. “He’s-- he’s okay, he’s hangin’ in there. She clears her throat. “Babe, he was really broken up about you.”

“I couldn’t protect him.”

“I think you did your best. You did, like… um, end up dead. And all.”

“Do you know what happened, Anathema?”

“Oh.” She blanches. “You-- oh, _mi cariño_. You were murdered.”

I stare at my hands and my tattered jeans.

“You died protecting Aziraphale.”

•••

“Now this,” Aziraphale keeps talking as he stumbles over small obstacles and grunts; vaulting over logs and old, rotted low fences. “This is a place of great evil.” He wipes his hand off on his dark trousers. “There has been much pain here. Torture.”

I stay a few steps back. I watch. He looks good, but cold and scared; all dressed in black with his hood up over his wet hair. I could reach out, but I don’t.

Aziraphale can still feel these things, but it wanes like everything else on our bodies, now so fragile. He still 

“Is this the work of a demon, Crowley? Do you suppose?” 

_“Hell is empty, and all of the devils are here,_” I say. 

He ignores me. “Most of these young men were travelling alone. The only one not alone was separated from friends at a pub--”

“Christ.”

•••

It takes everything I’ve got, but the morning light comes quickly. Anathema won’t likely come back this way again. It’s a good four hours from the village, and she’s on her way back from visiting family. Even if she believes me, she’ll chalk it up to _‘spooky_!’ and I’ll be nothing more than a water-cooler ghost story. If witches have those. I’m not sure. 

So, I concentrate as hard as I can.

I leave my jacket in the back seat of Anathema’s car, as real as anything.

•••

It works.

I disappear on Anathema, without meaning to; and the next night I find myself lounging in my favorite spot in the bookshop.

He’s crying. In his hands, my jacket-- soft, dark silk. His thumbs rub the lapels in a rhythmic, calming motion. The jacket is not as I remember it-- dirt has become fully integrated with the fabric, and it has rotted away in patches. Some of the buttons are missing, and the ones that remain are tarnished. I liked that jacket. I like seeing Aziraphale’s hands on it even more.

I hate seeing him cry.

•••

“I like that jacket,” he says, at the beginning of the night. We are off to see the stars and it’s November but it’s still warmish.

“Thanks.”

“It’s cute,” he says, and the mood between us shifts.

It’s not the first time. It won’t be the last time--

He takes my hand and we watch the sun fall under the horizon, lighting the desert in yellows, then soft pinks and peaches; then a blue that turns deeper with every minute. We’re on the hood of my car and my arm is around him and I kiss the top of his head, the scent of his shampoo filling my senses. It’s beautiful in its simplicity, two figures otherwise alone in a vast landscape, dotted with cacti and low shrubs; a ribbon of road stretching out to infinity in either direction.

“Would you go back? If you could?”

“Hmm?” I ask. I marvel at my own ability to articulate.

“Space.”

“By the terms of my contract with humanity, my next words must be _‘the final frontier_’, Aziraphale. You know this.”

I’m rewarded with a snort and a half-hearted flick of his fingers.

“You really have _gone native_,” he says and he gives me a once over, his eyes taking me in all at once, batting of lashes letting me know how silly he finds all of this. “Yes, Crowley. I would love to see creation’s glory up close, just one last time. Perhaps we will one day.”

He holds me; I fit into him. We are the only souls around, I think; and it’s like our own universe out here. I tip my head down and cradle his chin and kiss him. He touches my hip and we stay like that, under the stars, on top of a scratchy blanket on an old car, until the sun rises.

We see a total of three shooting stars. Whatever they are made of, they leave us there to wonder.

•••

After a while, he curls up in the armchair, head tucked into the corner. He drapes my rotted jacket around himself, and takes hold of one of the arms as though it were a stuffed animal. As if it were me.

His sorrow fills the room, but there’s nothing I can do.

He shouldn’t be making those sounds; he shouldn’t be curled up there, shivering in his own grief. The sobs come from deep in his chest, raw and awful. I notice now that he is covered in the evidence of that violence-- ghosts of bruises decorate him in green with burgundy spackle, up and down his biceps and the one cheek that I can see.

I rise. I touch his cheek, I sink my fingers into his hair; but I am useless. I was nothing then, and I am worse than nothing now.

He starts at the feel of my hand-- my intent. The tail end of a racking sob is torn from him and his eyes dart around the darkened room.

“Aziraphale. I’m so sorry--”

I’m no more than wind.

He’s drained; he’s down to nothing, now. He’s alone. I shake with rage and horror and sorrow at my impotence.

I kneel at his sock feet, and there I remain.

•••

“We should go.”

“Good. It’s creepy as hell around here,” I say. I should know.

“It feels like--” Aziraphale shivers. “--like the walls are made of eyes. The evil is everywhere.”

“What a disgusting thought.”

“It isn’t just me. You feel that too?” He feels the ache of leaving heaven. I know he does. I blame myself.

“I get it. I hate it here. It is absolutely crawling with nasty, stinking evil. Just like home.” I’m shivering; my clothes are soaked, and all I want to do is get back to our shitty hotel room and blockade the fucking door.

I actually do end up blockading the door by sliding over a chair and shoving it under the doorknob.

We peel off our clothing, and each article makes a wet splat as it hits the tile floor of the bathroom. We’ll deal with it after we shower, I think-- but that’s the end of my thoughts for a while as Aziraphale taps on my naked shoulder and pulls me down for a kiss.

He bites my lip. I feel him slip his tongue into my mouth and my nerves sing from the roof of my mouth to my toes; his fingertips scraping my scalp.

I put a tentative hand against the side of his neck; feel him hum. It’s fast; too fast, we’re both half-naked, shivering, and scared.

I feel like a part of me understands the finality in this night. I need to know his body; feel him under me. Over me. I want to rip myself open for him, crack myself open like an egg, let him feast on the meat inside so he should never be found wanting. The need runs deep in my core to the point that it’s horrific. I should feel guilt; should warn him of this intensity, but --

If it’s not the end; if this is one huge, awkward, friendship ending mistake-- if that’s the case, then I can deal with the consequences.

I cannot deal with the alternative of never knowing.

Fingers reach up over my chest, fluttering over bones and muscle and fat. I watch him and I should feel strange like I always do, but I don’t, and he guides me backwards. There’s a hunger in his eyes, and his whole face lights up when the back of my knees hit the bed.

We take our fill of each other. Of kisses, of touches.

In the morning, I am all but gone.

•••

Looking at him, I remember. The shocking violence of it.

How pedestrian it was, after all. The strange urges of a strange man. Not demon, nor angel. 

I always told them that humanity could damned well do it themselves. 

He decides to target Aziraphale while his lips are still chafed from my unshaven face and while my heart is still warm and I dress slowly, half asleep.

My angel slips out of the room early; something forgotten in the car. He’s accosted, but the attacker is getting on in years. Aziraphale fights like a rabid dog and I love him for it.

“Crowley! Help!”

I hear his shout. I run, only just managing to shove my second boot on. I jump down as many stairs as I can at once without killing myself, and I’m out into the morning light. I follow the shouting, the screaming; the muted landing of blows on skin.

“Aziraphale!” I bellow. “Someone, call the fucking cops.”

They’re behind the building. There’s a white panel van, the side door wide open. Inside, I can see lengths of rope hanging from hooks, and cables and clamps.

The creep has Aziraphale in a chokehold. He’s at least three hundred and fifty pounds, wearing dingy clothes with a military look to them. His greasy hair is brushed back from his puffy face.

One of the prick’s eyes is swollen so much that he can hardly see, and it’s blackening and bleeding.

_Aziraphale,_ I think._ Good for you. I am so fucking proud of you._

Aziraphale is still putting up a good fight-- shoving elbows into the man’s midsection, kicking and writhing, and doing his best to be a dead weight in his arms. Just a few months ago, he could have rendered the man ash with a single thought. No time for guilt. I just run. I don’t know what else to do. I lunge at the man and hit him in the face-- my left hook is respectable for an ageing noodle of an ex-demon. I manage to get him to drop Aziraphale, and he falls flat on his ass. I think, we can run, now--

There’s a gun.

It happens so quickly.

He points the gun at Aziraphale, and uses the van to hoist himself to his feet. He doesn’t even speak, until he orders me to get into the van. Aziraphale is screaming; pleading. Tears stream down his face. I shake my head and hold his eyes in mine.

•••

I pull a pile of heavy blankets to where he’s curled up, and I lay them over him and I tuck them into all the drafty corners around him.

I watch him as he wakes up, just before dawn. He doesn’t brush his teeth or make coffee or eat, he just cries.

•••

“One theory is, like-- with interdimensional beings, is that it’s-- ok, like; you know the blades on a fan? So when it’s moving slow, you can see the blades, but when it speeds up you can’t...or you catch glimpses of it.”

I get that, I think.

Watching him sleep, I feel I know exactly what he meant. There’s an underlying hum to my newfound, posthumous existence. He’s on one plane, whirring away at a low power. I’m on this other plane-- it’s like a jet-engine; like when you’re looking at airplane propellers at full speed and there’s a flash and you think you see four stationary blades, flashing in and out. I didn’t get it before. I _think_ I get it now. Ineffable, except when nerdy humans try and figure it out. 

I think that’s what it was like for the drivers who saw me.

For Aziraphale, I try my hardest to turn off the engine and I stick my hands in, slowing the blades.

_Flicker, flicker, flicker--_

He’s made popcorn.

I smile. I think this might be his first meal in a few days.

_Flicker. Flicker._ Stop.

I wonder how much Anathema told him. I think he might not have; but then, how would he have explained the jacket? It is still draped across the back of the armchair.

A flash of all-consuming rage flares in the pit of my stomach and surprises me. Terrifies me. The idea that I could make myself appear to a casual friend, but not--

It doesn’t matter.

I know that he can see me, now. I stand in front of him where he sits in the chair. He stops eating and stares up at me in disbelief; the only evidence of movement the tremor that runs through his hand.

A lightbulb in the kitchen shatters and the room is dark.

He doesn’t speak, doesn’t move, doesn’t look anywhere except straight at me. He’s not startled. The look on his face screams anguish; incredulity.

•••

Somehow, my angel found me that night. I don’t know how. 

Maybe my killer was just in a hurry. I don’t know, because I lost consciousness not long after. He dumped me in the woods to die. I saw his lumbering form retreat. He’d come back for me later, like all the others.

Aziraphale got to me first.

“Why?” He asks. “How?”

You know the concept of ‘unfinished business’? I think that’s why I’m here, I want to say.

I don’t.

I just reach for him.

His eyes are wide open, like he fears that I’ll disappear if he closes them for even a moment. I want to promise him that I’ll never leave; that I’ll never disappear.

I know that isn’t true.

“How can I see you?”

I smile so hard that it should hurt.

“You’re kinda see-through,” he says.

“Like cellophane, baby.”

I hold him through the night, as best I can. It’s nothing, it’s nothing-- I want to scream at the wretched nothingness of it all-- but if I focus, he makes a little ‘oh’. I need him to feel me, even if it’s the last time.

I manage a hug. I manage wisps of my fingers across his cheekbones. I try to ask if-- if anything else happened to him. I just end up sobbing.

“You’re getting my arm all wet,” Aziraphale says; smiling and sobbing at the strangeness of it.

•••

I stay for three nights. I disappear in the mornings.

He says he misses me when I’m not there, and I feel worse than I could imagine.

I have to tell him.

“There’s a cabin out there, in the woods. It’s way off 101, near Boyes Creek where you found me-- and that’s where he is.”

Aziraphale gulps.

“Crowley.” He says my name through tears; through a thick, heavy chest. “They found him this morning, Crowley. It was all over the news-- I think you did help though, somehow; with all the sightings on the highway. He was.”

Aziraphale starts crying again. He tries to drink a glass of water, sputters, and then manages. I focus all of my energy and I hold his hand.

“He was holed up in the crawlspace. They almost didn’t find him.”

“Oh.”

I blink through tears that I’m somehow able to produce.

“I thought I had unfinished business.”

I guess that wasn’t it.

•••

My jacket hangs in the hallway. I haunt him still.

Sometimes my energy wanes. I tell him every day that I love him; in the steam of the shower on the glass-- just as long as he showers before dawn. I manage to make him a sandwich once, the day he goes back to work.

I don’t have unfinished business. I just want to be near him. Every night: just one last time.

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading! Kudos and comments are always appreciated. Come and yell at me on my [tumblr](https://lovelybydecay.tumblr.com/).


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